Stay for the Sunlight
by geek x girl
Summary: Sasuke looks at the boy who almost killed him, who almost saved him who has given up everything just for him. He decides that it's about time he return the favor.


1.

When he wasn't training or devising strategies on how best to exact revenge on his brother, Uchiha Sasuke spent his days devoid of light in his small bedroom, complete with dirt-packed floors and a dilapidated wooden desk.

He lies there most nights doing exactly what he swore to never do - dwell on the past.

He remembers the way it once felt to run across a grassy field and feel the sunlight on his skin. He remembers laughing, though it was something he did not do often, and being content with where he was for once in his life.

He remembers three smiles from his past. One reverberated concern, adoration, and a love he could not return. Another that he once saw as wise and familiar became cruel, calculating, and utterly grotesque, inciting a rush of heat to his veins and an instinct to kill. And one smile, he remembers is as unmistakable as the sunlight - blinding, uncontrollable, and powerful enough to drive out the darkness within himself.

But like his windowless room, Sasuke has learned to block out the sunlight.

According to Sasuke's logic, darkness consumes the light. It is inevitable, it is irrevocable, it is the only thing his brother ever told him that was actually true.

The thought is comforting, and so Sasuke reminds himself of it every single night, when he closes his eyes and sees nothing but blue eyes and a smile bright enough to outshine the sun.

2.

_You could have stayed_.

**Four words**. Sasuke remembers them vividly, Naruto's desperate voice gone raw from screaming at his receding back.

Now here they are again, facing each other, clothes ripped, faces bloody, and hearts racing.

Like deja vu, the situation seems so familiar. And yet, everythings different now.

_Isn't it?_

"It's over," Naruto gasps, as he spits out blood onto the muddy forest floor, looking like vomit as it mixes with the wet dirt. "He's gone. Come home now. Please."

It's not so much a demand, but a plea.

Somewhere far off into the distance, Sakura is screaming at them to stop, but her cries fall - once again - on all too deaf ears.

Orochimaru is dead. Itachi is dead. But most of all, Sasuke feels dead.

He charges at Naruto again, grief and rage filling his eyes with unspilled tears.

_He's dead. He's dead. He's dead. He's dead._

"It's over!" Naruto screams, dodging Sasuke's wayward fist as it smashes into a tree.

_You could have stayed._

But each time Sasuke thinks of _what might have been_, all he can picture is the way his mother's blood looked, casually brushed against the walls like paint, an image that stained every memory he ever had of home. His short-lived, happy childhood was pulled out beneath him like a rug, leaving him with hatred, regret, and a type of aching lonliness that became dull over time - only to become precisely sharpened and amplified by the return of his brother -- his brother that he swore to kill.

But it's over now, isn't it?

_The grey sky above - overcast with clouds - finally parts. _

_It begins to rain._

But that's all Sasuke was. All Sasuke will ever be.

"There's nothing left," he mutters bitterly under his breath, eyes blank, and emotions drained. The rain continues to poor - harshly and accusingly - matting his tangled, black hair against his face. Rivulets of water run down his cheeks, forming pools within his hollow collarbone.

"Please."

Naruto's voice is shaky. Hysterical. Desperate.

He stands there waiting, bloody clothes clinging to his aching body.

One of them has to die. It is something Sasuke believes in without a doubt. Naruto, on the other hand, vehemently disagrees.

Sasuke looks up, into the blue depths of Naruto's eyes - bright and alive and so unlike the bleary sky reigning above them. He takes everything in - the tattered orange jumpsuit, whiskered cheeks, bloody hands, and the determind stare.

Sasuke looks at the boy who almost killed him, who almost saved him -- who has given up everything just for him.

He decides that it's about time he return the favor.

So among the broken, between the bloody, and below the rain - Sasuke comes to a rational conclusion. One where Naruto can live and continue brightening a world he no longer belongs in, and one where the pain of a lost family will no longer haunt him.

But most of all, it's a choice that will make him forget about the brother that he loved, but hated even more.

(Two boys stand in a clearing, - one face chocked-full of determind passion, the other revealing mournful relief burdened by defeat.)

Sasuke lunges towards Naruto, blade drawn, face distorted in the falling rain.

But when the blood spills, the handle is in Naruto's hands, pushing the blade into the other boy's chest, where - Sasuke likes to think - once lay his healthy, beating heart.

Naruto's lips move, producing something between a choke and a sob as Sasuke's limp body falls into his arms. The blood drips into the clear puddles, tainting them a bright crimson.

"You could have stayed," Naruto manages, voice barely above a whisper. Sasuke can see his eyes, reflected against the raindrops running down Naruto's face.

He wonders which ones might be tears.

Sasuke tries to figure out if he is talking about back then, or right now, but everything becomes indistinguishable before he can find an answer. All he can focus on is the curve of Naruto's neck and the expanse of grey sky behind it - blurry, obscured, and pouring with rain.

He smiles, as he closes his eyes, ready for a world of sunlight.

3.

When Sasuke does open his eyes, everything is brighter than he could of ever imagined.

And it hurts just as much, too.

The soft caress of grass tickles the exposed skin of his arm. He moves around stiffly trying to get into a sitting position, but finds his movements restricted by the tight bindings of blood stained bandages.

He can feel the bright glow of the sun envelop him in warmth, and in the distance he sees small children running around, laughing and giggling.

He looks around frantically for the first couple of seconds thinking to himself_, "This must be heaven," _until out of nowhere a pair of eyes as blue as the sky pop into his vision. Those eyes suddenly crinkle together, distorted by the huge smile spreading across his face.

And before Sasuke can even utter a sound, Naruto wordlessly slides his hand into his and speaks four simple words.

"I'm glad you stayed."

**Author's Notes:**

Not only is this my first anime fic, this is my first Naruto fic. Hope you like.


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